08/30/25

Looking at Slavoj Zizek’s Book (2024) “Christian Atheism” (Part 1 of 33)

0001 The book before me is a paperback, published in 2024 by Bloomsbury Academia (London, Dublin, New York) with the subtitle: How to Be a Real Materialist.  The author, Slavoj Zizek, is one of the most entertaining intellectuals on the circuit for the contemporary left.

The inner panel of the cover claims that this book is Zizek’s most extensive treatment of theology and religion to date.

This is enough to inspire me to test out Zizek’s analytic expertise.

Surely, Zizek offers food for thought.

0002 In order to pluck the… um… fruit from Zizek’s tree of knowledge, one should proceed to the final chapter, titled, “Conclusion: The Need for Psychoanalysis” (pages 235-266).  I know that that sounds like cheating, but a more extensive examination of the remainder of the book is promised.

0003 What does the label “Christian atheism” imply?

First, when the Son dies on the cross, the Father dies as well.

If I frame the relation of Father [and] Son as a hylomorphe, a dyad consisting of two contiguous real elements, the two real elements are Father and Son and the contiguity, placed in brackets for proper notation, should be something like [begets].  Here is the resulting hylomorphic structure.

0004 This actuality… er… hylomorphe… is typical for Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements, as discussed in A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

Secondness is the dyadic realm of actuality.  Secondness prescinds from firstness, the monadic realm of possibility.  Thirdness, the triadic realm of normal contexts, signs, mediations, judgments and so on, channels this precission.  Thirdness brings secondness into relation with firstness.   Such is the nature of the category-based nested form.

0005 So what happens when the Father, the thesis of the Old Testament, begets His Son, Jesus, his antithesis in the New Testament?  Well, the good book tells the stories.  Jesus ends up dying on a cross after crying out, “Father, why have you abandoned me?”

Surely, this is a psychic trauma that Lacanian psychoanalysis might be interested in.  But above, there is only the divine actuality2.  Actuality2 is encountered, it is not understood.  In order to understand an encountered actuality2, one needs to figure out a normal context3 and potential1.  The category-based nested form has all the ingredients for understanding (that is, all three categories get labeled and constitute a single triadic relation).

0006 Zizek says that, when the Son dies, so does the Father.

Here is a picture of this actuality2, along with my guesses concerning the normal context3 and potential1.

0007 The normal context of the Holy Spirit3 brings the dyadic actuality of {the Father [dies with His] Son}2 into relation with the monadic possibility of ‘divine oneness’1that some Christians want to call “Love”.  But, Muslims seem to call, “Allah”.

Even though Zizek is well-trained in Lacan’s psychoanalysis, he is also versed in Hegel’s philosophy and Marx’s materialism.  So, he notes that after Jesus dies… and the Father dies too… Christ becomes the Holy Spirit, as a new emancipatory collective (page 242).  Well, he calls the Holy Spirit, “the Holy Ghost”, so it makes sense that Jesus would be the Ghost instead of His Father, if that helps.

0008 So who or what is this emancipatory collective?

Uh oh, is it the so-called “bride of Christ”?

0009 The actuality of Father [begets] Son2 associates to an encounter in the Real.

How real?  

0010 On one hand, Protestants make the point that the Old and the New Testaments are more real than the Catholic church.  But, there is a distinction between an encounter (actuality2) and understanding (a complete category-based nested form).  Surely, the Old and New Testaments witness encounters.  I wonder whether the Protestants can pass to understanding. There are questions about the words.  What do the words in the text signify?

Zizek takes the words literally when he says that Jesus, the Christ, becomes the Holy Ghost.  But, there is a lacunae, because the Holy Spirit3 is the one who speaks from the cloud above the soon-to-be severed head of John the Baptist.  There, in the Jordan River, the king of kings is baptized.  The Holy Spirit3 is already present as a purely relational being, the normal context for the actuality of {Father [and] Son}2.

0011 The Catholic church, on the other hand, codifies one particular encounter, the Eucharistic sacrament (otherwise called “the Mass”).  Yes, Catholics can join in the potential of divine oneness1 through this sacrament2, which celebrates the simultaneous death of the Son and Father.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” applies to the Father as well as all humanity.  Just as elites of Roman Guard and Second Temple are monsters for murdering Christ under the pretext of their laws, the Father is a monster for offering his own Son as a sacrifice.  During the Mass, we humans remind ourselves of our own culpabilities and the Father, too, reminds Himself of His own, by transubstantiating the consecrated bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.  Yes, the Father brings Jesus back to life, at the Resurrection and the consecration.

0012 The Mass is far more twisted than most theologians will admit.  But, a Lacanian can concede the deal.  The Father allows us into mystical union through the Son while saying, “If you eat of my monstrosity, I will accept your monstrosities.”

Of course, some qualifications apply.

That is what the sacrament of confession is for.

Here is a picture for the emancipated collective that associates to the Holy Ghost.

The triadic normal context of the church, as the Bride of Christ3, brings the dyadic actuality of {Jesus’ last supper [re-enacted in] the Mass}2 into relation with the potential of ‘my (human) mystical union with God’1.  The sacraments are mediators between human and divine.

0013 Well, this is not precisely what Zizek has in mind.

Zizek mentions the Holy Ghost in light of Freud’s death drive.  Freud uses the term, “death drive”, to label repetition disorders that basically say, “I am still alive.”  Or maybe, “If I keep doing this, I will not die.”

It’s like the fellow who loves fishing, encounters a massive illness that almost kills him, then returns to fishing.  I am still alive.  The death drive creatively sublimates the trauma.  Fishing becomes an obsession.  Fishing borders on the sublime.  The fish that struggles against the line is a symbol.  The life that the fish fights for is imaginary, because all of us are mortal.  But, one never knows until death arrives.  The death drive continues to repeat until we have reached the destination.

0014 So, what precisely does Zizek have in mind?

Well, I suppose that Zizek wants to capitalize on the idea of the Holy Spirit as an “emancipated collective” for his socialist theory.  Does Zizek buy into the hocus-pocus of the Catholic church as the Bride of Christ3?  Or, does he want to make Christ2, who belongs to the category of secondness, into a figure3, belonging to the category of thirdness, that operates on the potential of ‘truth’1?

0015 Zizek’s configuration is corroborated at the very end of the chapter (page 265) when he comments on a 1918 poem, titled “Twelve”, by Aleksandr Blok.  At the end of this poem, an apparition of Jesus walks before a team of twelve Red Guards, patrolling the snow-filled streets of revolutionary Petrograd.  Christ is not a leader2 (in the realm of actuality2), Christ3 is a shadow who contextualizes the actuality of a group of comrades2 who, in turn, both emerge from (and situate) their Cause1 (the potential of truth1).

So, I wonder, what type of king is this?

Does the kingdom of God dwell among us in such a strange and mysterious manner?

08/1/25

Looking at Slavoj Zizek’s Book (2024) “Christian Atheism” (Part 33 of 33)

0339 So, why compare the two interscopes?

Well, there are two Relativist Ones, one belonging to Zizek’s configuration and one contained in the post-truth condition.

That is a tad confusing.

Plus, it seems to me that the following association of Lacan’s terminology with open slots of the perspective level applies to both interscopes.  

All these items may be regarded as writ small.

Plus, the pattern repeats within Zizek’s interscope.  Jouissance1 writ large coincides with the virtual nested form in firstness.

Similarly, objet a2c(2a) writ large matches the actualities2 on the perspectivec and contenta levels.  The petit objet a writ large matches the situation-level actuality2b.

Uh, does that also apply to the interscope for the post-truth condition?

If it does, then there are two Relativist Ones3c, one corresponds to a little Big Other3c(2b) (in Zizek’s configuration as a psychometric valuation2b) and one corresponds to a big Big Other3c (for the interscope for the post-truth condition).

0340 Okay, the little Relativist Big Other3c(2b) dwells within the big Relativist Big Other2b.

What about Christian atheism?

Zizek’s configuration resides within the slot for psychometric valuation2b.

Does Zizek’s Christian atheism3c(2b) deny the divinity of the big Big Other3c?

If it does, then the following comparison offers another reason why modern politics is immanently theological and supports Zizek’s concluding chapter, arguing that the post-modern West should not disregard psychoanalysis, simply because it questions postmodern scientific-sounding capitalist and socialist valuations2b.

0341 So… uh…. why does Zizek propose Christian atheism3c(2b)?

Isn’t Slavoj Zizek an expert2b operating on the formalized knowledges of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Hegelian philosophy and Marxist materialism1b?

Excuse me while I scribble a note saying, “Of course, he sees the light…”

0342 I want to note, if the big Relativist One3c is divine, as preached by the banquet dinner speaker, Baelzebob Jones,speaking, way back when, to the CPP on the evening when I was conceived, then psychoanalysis should be disregarded, because “wealth” and “power” are two distinct and separate entities2c, just like photons as waves and… um… photons as particles.

“… yeah, the light.”

Photons as particles1b(2b) and photons as waves1b(2b) produce distinct and separate measurements2b(2b), as far quantum-physics apparatuses3b(2b) are concerned.  Data1c(2b) is the potential1c(2b) of measurements2b(2b).  And, measurements2b(2b) virtually situate a model standing in the place of the noumenon2a(2b).

Consequently, an irreconcilable distinction between particle and wave2b  constitutes an opportunity1c that supports the divinity of the big Relativist One of the Physics of the Quantum Universe3c.

Fortunately, all hell broke loose before Dr. Jones finished his address.

0342 The logics of thirdness are exclusion, complement and alignment.  Here the little and the big normal contexts align, but the little cannot replace the big.  Nonetheless, the same term is used for both perspective-level normal contexts, even though the two normal contexts differ.  Both are Relativist Ones.

0343 The logics of secondness are those of contradiction and non-contradiction.  If the two actualities of {capital, acquisition [wealth and power] social, exercise of order}2c(2b)  and psychometric valuation2b do not contradict, then I can regard one as an example of the other… or maybe… the little one pays tribute to the big one.

0344 The logics of firstness are inclusion.  Firstness allows contradictions.  Here, the same principle noted above applies.  A synthetic truth1c(2b) supporting a situation-level little Relativist one3c(2b) offers opportunity1c for a perspective-level big Relativist one3c.

In Zizek’s book, a synthetic truth1c(2b) undergirds an intellectual configuration of the dyad, {capital, acquisition [wealth and power] social, exercise of order}2c(2b) for Zizek’s little Relativist One3c(2b).  Zizek’s psychometric valuation2b may contextualized as a possible opportunity1c by a post-truth big Relativist One3c.

Surely, opportunity1c is potentiated by the little Relativist one3c(2b).

But, what opportunity1c is potentiated by Christ3c(2b)?

Oh, I must not forget, Zizek calls for psychoanalysis.

So, Christ3c(2b) must be an intervention.

0345 The perspective-level nested form in Zizek’s configuration neatly fits into the slot for psychometric valuations2bon the situation-level of the post-truth interscope.

Does this explain why the names of post-truth levels should be totally juiced up?

0346 Okay, the entire interscope for Zizek’s configuration resides in the slot for psychometric valuations2b for the post-truth interscope.

This remarkable finding adds value to Zizek’s argument.

Zizek’s Christian atheism is designed to challenge current psychometric valuations2b arising from the potential of ‘a postmodern formalization of knowledge’1b within the normal context of a stylistic union of capitalist and socialist expertise3b.

Christian atheism3c(2b) can substitute for the little Relativist One3c(2b).

But, what about the union between the big Relativist One3c and the little Relativist One3c(2b)?

Would some say… “the unholy union”?

0347 See Razie Mah’s blog for February 11, 2023 for that one.

This blog serves as the first exercise for exploring the utility these arguments.

First, associate features of the music video to elements in Zizek’s configuration.

My hint is that the dyad, {money and political influence [pays for] the Body Shop} associates to the imaginary actuality, {raw materials [construct] specified product}2a(2b).

The rest is left to the exercise.

Second, place the first step into the slot for psychometric valuations2b in order to explain why this music video is produced and advertised by American corporate media.

0348 Do the producers and promulgators of this video want to influence what the white woman has to say?

Write your essay and send to raziemah@reagan.com with written permission for publication on Razie Mah’s blog.

0349 This first exercise reveals the comedy of locating Zizek’s configuration in the slot for psychometric valuations in the post-truth condition.  It also reveals the tragedy.

Consider the tragic photon.

In order to reveal itself as either a wave or a particle, it must be annihilated.

Is that too high a price to pay?

I guess not, because a photon is neither living nor dead.

0350 Take a look at the preceding interscope.

On the obscene level, no-one cares what the photon thinks, because it is doomed to annihilation in the process of determining whether it “says” that it is a particle or a wave.  How obscene is that?

On the undead level, experts in physics3b operate the apparatus3b(2b) that converts what the photon says2a into measurements2b(2b), that support an orderly model2c(2b).  The model2c(2b) asserts that the photon will say, “I am a particle composed of superimposed states and waves”2a(2b)“.  In other words, the measured photon2b(2b) says what the experts3b predict that it will say.

0351 Does this demonstrate the potential of ‘formalized knowledge’1b?

Formalized knowledge1b makes the annihilation of the subject2b(2b) possible.

The subject2a(2b)‘s content-level autonomy converts into a situation-level measurement2b(2b) that supports a model2c(2b)that offers an opportunity1c for an empirio-normative judgment2c to stand for what people think and say2a concerning the soon-to-be annihilated subject2a(2b).

0352 On the sacred level, the One Physicist2c formulates a judgment2b weighing the intelligibility of what the experts report2b and the universality of what photons are telling the experts2a.  This judgment reveals to human reason3a(1a)that it1b does not matter what photons think2a.

Isn’t that obscene?

Indeed, reason3a(1a), defined as “the intellect3a operating on the will1a“, is obscene.

Where the hell is truth1a?

0353 Isn’t that what Zizek is interested in?

Isn’t that what Christian atheism is supposed to deliver?

0354 So concludes my independent approach to what Zizek argues for.

I end with a note on nomenclature.

Lacan is very clever in his terminology.  

So is Zizek.

In the following picture on nomenclature, Lacan’s column applies to the entire interscope of Zizek’s configuration and Zizek’s “juiced up” column applies to the entire post-truth interscope.

Perhaps, these columns intimate future directions of inquiry during these crazy times, belonging to the Fourth Battle of the Enlightenment Gods.

0355 I thank Slavoj Zizek for a book that is worthy of examination.

07/5/25

Looking at Graham Langdon’s Book (2024) “The Mystery of the Navel Idols”  (Part 1 of 4)

0001 The book before me is published by Archaic Lens Publishing (North Carolina).  The author posts podcasts on youtube, writes on twitter, and has a website, www.archaiclens.com.  The book’s subtitle is The Thread that Connects the Ancient World.

0002 The author documents navel idols that are readily identifiable to the human eye on the basis of several characteristics, as shown below.

0003 They appear at the dawn of history, in regions that will end up civilized, but before any advances in the direction of labor and social specializations.  Later, the idols will associate to the Chalcolithic (the Copper Age), corresponding to the era before the Bronze Age (when copper is mixed with other ingredients to create effective weapons).

The oldest navel figure is Urfu man, recovered from Gobekli Tepe in Turkey (Anatolia) and dating to around 10,000 B.C.  This is long before the end of the last interglacial.  The megastructure site associates to the pre-pottery Neolithic, which comes before the pottery Neolithic.  Subsequent Neolithic cultures throughout southwestern Asia will be labeled and identified on the basis of their pottery.

Also, Gobekli Tepe is not associated with a sedentary settlement, such as the contemporaneous Catal Huyuk.

0004 So, what am I saying?

Gobekli Tepe, Catal Huyuk and similar sites do not end up constellating into a tangle of unconstrained social and labor specializations, where social circles transmogrify into networks of economic and political-religious affiliations.

0005 In the section on Turkey, the author makes an interesting point.  The body habitus of Urfu man appears in statuary and figurines in early civilizations around the world.  The further from Gobekli Tepe, the later in time these navel idols appear.

Ironically, this point is precisely the rule of thumb held by archaeologists during the early twentieth century.  The further from southern Mesopotamia, the later an early civilization forms.

0006 Coincidence?

Or is one observation swept up in the other?

0007 In the section on Turkey, the author includes a watercolor image of an awkward looking small artifact, with enormous alien-like eyes, v-neck adornment and hand on either side of navel.  This clay figurine dates to around 5,000 B.C., during the copper age, according to the British Museum.

This artifact dates to 5,000 years after Gobekli Tepe.

The prehistoric cultures associated with the later artifact occur on the cusp of civilization, where the term, “civilization” is characterized by unconstrained labor and social specialization.

0008 A look at the sections on the Kosovo, Serbia and the Balkans support this association.  The navel idols of the Vinca culture (5850-5750 B.C.) appear similar to the latter Turkey artifact.  The Vinca culture practices farming, animal husbandry and copper smelting.  A similar pattern occurs in Bulgaria.  These cultures are on their way to increasing social complexity.

0009 The pattern will hold for all navel idols found to the west of the Aegean Sea.  The navel idols and the Chalcolithic and other features, such as astronomy-related megalithic arrangements, spread west from southwestern Asia.

Since Gobekli Tepe is pre-pottery and pre-Chalcolithic, it cannot be the direct inspiration for the navel idol figures located the West, five millennia later.  So, the old archaeologists’ saying of the early 20th century applies.  Something from southern Mesopotamia sends out emissaries bearing the news of not talking with one’s hands, as well as copper manufacture and astronomy.

Indeed, it may be that the cultural efflorescence that builds Gobekli Tepe and other Anatolian sites spreads into northern, then southern Mesopotamia as the glacial climate gives way to the Wet Neolithic of southwestern Asia and northern Africa

0010 The sea-level rise serves as a good way to demark the navel idols before pottery and copper and the navel idols after.

07/5/25

Looking at Graham Langdon’s Book (2024) “The Mystery of the Navel Idols”  (Part 4 of 4)

0030 To the immediate west of Mesopotamia, the navel idols of Israel, dating to 4500-3500 B.C., look like they correspond to the first message.  The Canaanite coffins of 1300-1200 B.C. look as if they are inspired by the latter message.  The coffins do not contain emissaries from Mesopotamia, they contain Canaanite elites who benefitted from trends towards unconstrained social complexity.

0031 In Sardinia, the messages separate into more than one style of navel icon..

0032 Here, this examiner leaves the reader to use the speculative structure of two messages to appreciate the many navel icons that the author presents in this well-appointed art-book.

To me, the overall picture is clear for the West and for the East (as far as Eurasia is concerned).

The navel icons, as well as their speech-alone talking emissaries, are next involved in establishing a foothold in South America, but the messages are confounded with a trend already occurring in China.  The same pose and adornment of the original navel icons are adopted as indications of elite status.

0033 Here is a picture.

0033 The conclusions… er… speculations of this examiner now set forth, I wonder whether the author will agree.

Of course, in this book, the author never entertains the idea that the navel icons are associated with either the bicameral mind (message 1) or the first singularity (message 2).

However, the author hints that intentional diffusion may be a reasonable explanation.  The navel icons spread at the cusps of early civilizations throughout Eurasia and the Americas.  Plus, there are other novel trends associated with the spread of the navel icons.  These include copper metallurgy and… well… something to do with tracking celestial bodies.  Oh, I should not forget v-shaped neck adornments.

0034 My thanks to the author for gathering evidence that is obvious to the eye, yet very difficult to account for.  Perhaps, this examination, based on two works by Razie Mah, may assist.

08/31/23

Looking at Glenn Diesen’s Book (2019) “The Decay … And Resurgence…”  (Part 1 of 21)

0001 The book before me is Dr. Glenn Diesen’s contribution to Routledge’s Series, Rethinking Asia and International Relations.  The text carries the full title of The Decay of Western Civilization and the Resurgence of Russia: Between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.  The series editor is Emilian Kavalski, the Li Dak Sum Chair in China-Eurasia Relations and International Studies at the University of Nottingham in Ningho, China.  At the time of publication, Dr. Diesen is a Visiting Scholar at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and Adjunct Research Fellow at Western Sydney University.  Diesen’s research interests are in international relations, political science, international political economy and Russian studies.  Say nothing of history.

0002 So… um… how does this book overlap with my interests?

I am interested in civilization.  The persistent question that arises in Razie Mah’s masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall,is, “What potentiates civilisation?”

0003 Consider the hypothesis of the first singularity.

The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language.  Our capacities for language evolve in the milieu of hand talk.  The ancestor to our own species practices fully linguistic hand talk.  Very successfully, I might add.  The voice is recruited to assist in synchronizing large groups (plus, a little sexual selection gets thrown in).  Once the vocal tract is under voluntary neural control, speech is added to hand talk at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens.

Homo sapiens practices a dual-mode of talking, hand-speech talk, for over 200,000 years before the first singularity.  The first singularity starts with the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia.

As the ocean levels rise at the start of our current interglacial, two hand-speech talking cultures in the then dry Persian Gulf are forced into the same territory.  One is a Mesolithic fishing culture occupying the river ravines and coast.  The other is a Developed Neolithic culture (agriculture mixed in with stockbreeding).  These two cultures meld, forming a pidgin then a creole language.  That creole language turns out to be the first instance of speech-alone talk.

0004 The semiotic qualities of speech-alone talk are significantly different than hand-speech talk (and hand-talk).  I won’t get into the details, but the consequences are enormous.

Hand-speech talk facilitates constrained social complexity (which, to me, calls to mind Diesen’s term, “gemeinschaft”, literally translated into the “rod of generality”, coinciding with tradition, intuition and, what modern scientists deride as “irrational thought”).

Speech-alone talk permits unconstrained social complexity.  Spoken words can be used to label things that cannot be pictured at pointed to, such as the term, “gesellschaft” (another one of Diesen’s key terms, literally translated into the “rod of the journeyman”, coinciding with specialization, analysis and, what scientists misleadingly call “rational thought”).

0005 The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia starts, say, 7800 years ago, which I label 0 Ubaid Zero Prime (0 U0′ or “zero uh-oh prime”, with “uh-oh” expressed as if reacting to an accident or a mishap).

At 0 U0′, the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the only culture in the world practicing speech-alone talk.  All the other Neolithic, Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic cultures of the time practice hand-speech talk.

Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.  The only (now dying) cultures that remember their hand-speech traditions are the Australian Aborigines and the North American Plains Indians.  Both are losing the hand-component of their hand-speech talk, due to exposure to speech-alone talking cultures and civilizations.  The receding of original justice, when all social circles work in harmony towards human flourishing in a world of signification, is nearly complete.

0006 Weirdly, that recession lies beneath the surface of recently examined books in anthropology.

Consider the following reviews, appearing in the Razie Mah blog.

Looking at Ian Hodder’s Book (2018) “Where Are We Heading?” (June 2023)Looking at David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Chapter (2021) “Why The State Has No Origins” (March 2023)

08/3/23

Looking at Glenn Diesen’s Book (2019) “The Decay … And Resurgence…”  (Part 21 of 21)

0180 Postmodernists recoil from grand narratives.

Yet, they embrace parlor games.

Perhaps, for their amusement, they may consider contemporary figures as stand-ins for the theodrama of the second civilisational cycle just imagined.

Or, they may ridicule the concept of a Plutonic year or the relevance of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions as a clock on the Celestial Earth.

In their distraction, they ignore the grand narratives that Diesen’s time-honoring Greimas square potentiate.

Isn’t imagination what we need?

0181 In several points in this book, Diesen says that the Russian… well… even more broadly… the Eurasian resurgence needs an ideological vision that organizes gesellschaft.  The same statement-of-need is found other books on contemporary international politics.

In Comments on Daniel Estulin’s Book (2021) “2045 Global Projects At War” (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), the commentary concludes with a sequence of interscopes that prepare a vision for the Chinese Datun, the conclusion of and the start of an opening of the Celestial Heavens (occurring in the years 2044 and 2045, respectively).  This 2250 year cycle ties back to the passage of the first singularity through eastern Eurasia (now China), sometime after 1000 U0′.

The passage of the first singularity into northern Eurasia (now Russia) occurs around the same time, seeding the Kurgan culture, who tames horses and runs on wagons.  Later, these migrating chiefdoms flood into western Europe and northern India in an exercise in elite dominance.  The event is called “the Indo-European language expansion”.

The passage of the first singularity into western Eurasia winds through the Aegean, giving rise to late copper and bronze age civilizations.  Do monuments such as Stonehenge signify the last efflorescence of hand-speech talking cultures or the adoption of speech-alone talk?

The passage of the first singularity into the Indian subcontinent initiates the settlement of the Indus floodplain, giving rise to the Harappan civilization.

The passage of the first singularity through Persia, directly east of Mesopotamia, occurs much earlier, seeding the Susa culture, which rises and then is overwhelmed by the neighboring Uruk culture.  Doesn’t that sound like an original imprint for Iran, located at the crossroads of Eurasia?

0182 What am I saying?

I am interested in civilization.  The persistent question that arises in Razie Mah’s masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall,is, “What potentiates civilisation?”

0183 The answer is the hypothesis of the first singularity.

This hypothesis calls for creative, interdisciplinary and altogether fantastic anthropological and archaeological inquiry into the potentiation of civilization throughout Eurasia (as well as the Americas).

What a research project!

Eurasia is home to the first civilisations, as well as early language expansions, such as the Indo-European and the Austronesian.

Eurasia is currently home to many distinct civilisations which, like Russia, are about to enter a new spring of sovereignty, as the summer of geoeconomics ends with the demise of the world’s reserve currency, shorter (and perhaps more expensive, but definitely more reliable) supply chains and respect for borders.

0184 Glenn Diesen is on target, in calling for a novel ideology, supporting neopragmatist approaches.

A research project based on the hypothesis of the first singularity responds to that call.

Likewise, Alexander Dugin is on target by envisioning a fourth political theory that is not a theory at all, but a pragmatic and tradition-cultivating being there.  Dasein!

To me, nothing conveys Dasein, better than the realization that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Both Diesen and Dugin, in their own ways, call for a new imagination, one that addresses the gesellschafts of all Eurasian civilizations with a series of questions, asking, “Where does the world come from?  Where do humans come from?  What went wrong?  What is the solution?”

0185 Today, the natural and social sciences of the West are accepted by all the Eurasian civilisations, not as absolute truths, but as methods of inquiry.  They set the stage for the mind-boggling hypothesis of the first singularity.  But, because of their materialist and instrumental inclinations, they never proposed the obvious.  The human niche is not a material or instrumental condition.

The first tool of the intellect for our species, Homo sapiens, is hand-speech talk.

The second tool of the intellect for our species is speech-alone talk.

Ten thousand years ago, all Paleolithic, Epipaleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures practice hand-speech talk.

Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.

The transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt is called the first singularity.

The first singularity begins with the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia and spreads on the wings of mimicry.

0185 Keep that research project in mind.

Razie Mah offers, in his blog on the date of Oct 1, 2022, “A Fantasia in G minor: A Speech Written for Gunnar Beck, MEP”.  The “G” stands for Germany.  The “minor” stands for its location in the grand expanse of Eurasia.  The speech is intended to be read in the European Parliament, currently an expression of BG(il)Lism and vassal of… chuckle… American Judeo-Pagans.  But, in this speech, the Parliament is the stage for the declaration of something more important than the identity of the hidden operators behind the destruction of gas pipelines running beneath the Baltic Sea.  Gunnar Beck needs only to stand up and give a 15 minute speech that calls for an act of imagination.

0186 My thanks to Glenn Diesen for his interesting and provocative book.  I pray for his continued work in these challenging fields of inquiry.

03/31/23

Looking at David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Chapter (2021) “Why The State Has No Origin” (Part 1 of 13)

0180 If David Graeber and David Wengrow’s recent book, subtitled, A New History of Humanity, is a breakthrough in postmodern anthropology, then it is so because it displays a semitic textual structure, instead of a greek textual structure.

These two styles are discussed in An Instructor’s Guide to An Archaeology of the Fall.  Rather than eliminating possibilities in order to arrive at the most likely correct interpretation, these authors play literary tricks, coupling chapters one and twelve, A:A’, chapters two and eleven, B:B’, and chapters three through nine and chapter ten, C:C’.

Figure 24

0182 The semitic structure is A:B:C:C’:B’:A’.  In Comments on David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Book (2021) The Dawn of Everything (by Razie Mah, available and smashwords and other e-book venues), the work is discussed in the pattern A:A’, B:B’ and C:C’.  Notably, the bulk of the book covers the last layer, C:C’, and balances seven chapters (three through nine, C) against one chapter (ten, C’).  Chapter ten is twice as long as any other chapter.

0183 Plus, chapter ten stands on its own, allowing me to place an examination in Razie Mah’s blog, with the title Looking at David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Chapter (2021) “Why The State Has No Origin”.  If the reader first encounters the blog, the commentary is available.  If the reader first purchases the commentary, then the reader can call the blog to the attention of others.

03/15/23

Looking at David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Chapter (2021) “Why The State Has No Origin”(Part 13 of 13)

0255 Graeber and Wengrow’s exploration of the dawn of everything ends with a cruel joke.

The “state”2b, as defined by social science, cannot indirectly emerge from (and situate) righteousness1aC, while, at the same time, manifesting the characteristics of “domination”2a.

So, how is the contemporary left’s dream of achieving the virtues of liberty, equality and fraternity through the apparatus of the state2b going to work?

Thus ends the third layer, C:C’, of the author’s wide-ranging exercise in the semitic textual style.  The Dawn of Everythingis contemporary postmodern social science at its finest.  The authors start by searching for the origins of social inequality.  They end with the promise of a new history of humanity.

These authors do not know what they do not know.  But they do suspect this…

0256 …A new history of the world awaits.  There is a new way to describe the dawn of everything, where “everything” corresponds to “our current Lebenswelt”.

Yet, their explorations play out as a dark joke, almost as cruel as the joke that, long ago, a talking serpent plays on a naive young woman.

My thanks to the authors.  My condolences as well, on more than one level.

These comments provide views that dramatically re-present the vistas intimated in David Graeber and David Wengrow’s book.  Welcome to a new age of understanding: The Age of Triadic Relations.

03/10/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2020) “Derrida” (Part 1 of 5)

0001 A chapter on Derrida appears in Michael Millerman’s Book (2020) Beginning with Heidegger: Strauss, Rorty, Derrida and Dugin and the Philosophical Constitution of the Political (Arktos Press), pages 135-166.  This fourth chapter considers the writings of the French Jacques Derrida (1930-2004 AD) concerning the German Martin Heidegger (1889-1976).

Millerman’s book consists of a long introduction, followed by chapters on Martin Heidegger, Leo Strauss, Richard Rorty, Jacques Derrida and Alexander Dugin.  The latter chapters discuss what the other philosophers say about Heidegger.  The method sounds like a doctoral dissertation.

My interest, of course, is to associate features of the arguments to purely relational structures, such as the category-based nested form or the Greimas square.

0002 Here, I look only at chapter four entitled, “Derrida”.  Derrida comments on Heidegger in two notable incidents. First, Heidegger is mentioned in an essay comparing deconstruction to negative theology.  Second, Derrida writes an essay entitled, “Heidegger’s Ear”.

Millerman approaches the first incident with caution, asking (more or less), “Is it possible to see how Derrida locates himself in a different place than Heidegger?”

Locates himself?

In slang, the question is, “Where is he coming from?”

0003 Where is Derrida coming from?

The first incident of note is an essay by Derrida in a book, Derrida and Negative Theology, edited by Harold Coward and Toby Froshay (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992). The title of the essay is “How To Avoid Speaking: Denials”.  Here, Derrida responds to claims that deconstruction resembles negative theology.  He says no.  Apophatic mysticism is hyperessential.  Deconstruction is all about the machinations of language.

0004 Hyperessential?

In order to appreciate this comment in terms of purely relational structures.  I associate the above accusation and responseto Peirce’s category of secondness, the realm of actuality.  The category of secondness contains two contiguous real elements.  For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the two real elements are matter and form.  I label the contiguity, [substance].  The nomenclature is matter [substance] form.

For apophatic mysticism, the form is the human, as a vessel, having emptied “himself” of all matters.

For deconstruction, I follow Ferdinand de Saussure’s (1857-1913 AD) definition of language as two arbitrarily related systems of differences, the spoken word (parole) and the corresponding thought (langue).  Parole corresponds to matter.  Langue corresponds to form.  [Arbitrary relation] serves as the contiguity.

0005 Here is a picture.

Figure 01

0006 Essence is substantiated form.

Derrida claims that negative theology is hyperessential.  This makes sense because the essence, {[emptiness] vessel2f}, has no corresponding esse_ce (a play on the Latin term, esse, representing [matter2m [substantiating]}.  As soon as matter appears in the slot, —-2m, then the contiguity becomes very difficult (if not impossible) to maintain, and something passes into the vessel, against all mystical admonishments saying, “Keep the vessel2f empty.”

Here is a picture of how esse_ce and essence play out in the realm of actuality2 for hylomorphism, apophatic mysticism and deconstruction.

Figure 02
03/9/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2020) “Derrida” (Part 2 of 5)

0007 Derrida claims that apophatic mysticism… and also deconstruction?… is like a secret.  Secrets have the character of actuality.  A secret contains information known only to us.  There are two real elements, depending on the normal context, such as the speaker and the hearer, everyone else and us, the whispered statement and the information it carries, and so on.  That means the substance changes with normal context.

Here is a picture of a secret entering into the slot for actuality2 in a category-based nested form.

Figure 03

0008 For deconstruction, a secret2 occurs in the normal context of speech-alone talk3.  An utterance is parole2m.  The information that it carries is langue2f.  Langue2f and the information2f are rapidly and intuitively constructed.  Meaning, presence and message1 spontaneously come to mind.  So, the secret requires a certain conspiracy.  Each party must speak the same mother tongue.  If the parties do not speak the same tongue, then they cannot whisper a secret to one another.

Of course, deconstruction knows how to shake the wheels of any secret2 just enough that the possibilities inherent in meaning, presence and message1 begin to… um… go out of whack.  The conceptual apparatus1 breaks down.

That is the game that Derrida plays.

0009 Here is how deconstruction considers secrets.

Figure 04

0010 For apophatic mysticism, a secret2 is like a gift given from one to another.  The gift extends a trust.  The recipient is not to betray the giver.  So, the normal context of the secret is a pact3.  A pact3 binds one person to another.

Theologically, the pact3 is between the Creator and the created.  Preparation is necessary.  The preparation ensures that the adept knows that “he” is an empty vessel, a creature, who cannot create “himself”.  Indeed, the adept has already received the gift of natural life.  Now, the goal is to receive the gift of supernatural abundance.

0011 And, what is supernatural abundance?

Well, superabundance is all about the potential of ‘meaning, presence and message’1, but not in a way that is vulnerable to Derrida’s deconstruction.  How so?  The apparatus1 is not conceptual.  The apparatus1 is inceptual.  And, this is where Heidegger comes in.  Heidegger’s philosophy promotes inceptual thought, along the same lines as apophatic mysticism.  That means, the normal context3 and the potential1 are outside of explicit abstraction and its conceptual apparatuses.

Figure 05

A secret contains information known only to us.